The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

  They had her heart rhythm stabilized and were running tests. That much registered in my brain, which could only mean one thing.

  Kendall was alive and breathing.

  That was what I’d needed to hear.

  My legs wobbled beneath me, and I eased myself into a vinyl-cushioned chair, listening to Marilee moan on and on about her ruined party and the damaged set.

  “I’m wondering now . . . I can’t help but consider . . . the recluse spider in my shoebox . . . the crashing mike that would have struck me if Jim hadn’t jumped in its way . . . what if Kendall had something to do with all of them? Perhaps she wants me to fail. Could that be it?” she asked my mother. “She’s always been so needy. I could never give her enough of me.”

  Kendall was needy?

  Obviously, Marilee hadn’t looked in the mirror lately.

  I tuned them out and looked around me, at the television hanging from the wall, the nine o’clock news anchors moving their mouths but the volume too low to hear. Had video and sound bites from Addison already hit the airwaves?

  Did the whole city of Dallas know about the fire at The Sweet Life’s studio, started by a burning I Dream of Jeannie hairpiece?

  Had anyone contacted Gilbert about Kendall? I wondered. Did he realize his daughter nearly died while his wife was going after Marilee with a vintage bottle of champagne?

  And what about Justin?

  Where was Marilee’s young lover?

  He’d disappeared during the wrestling match between Marilee and Amber Lynn, and I’d half-expected to find him with Kendall. Only she’d been all by her lonesome when I’d stumbled upon her in Marilee’s bathroom.

  Or was she really all by her lonesome?

  I hadn’t exactly peered into closets or poked behind furniture. Could Justin have been with her when she got sick and passed out? Would he have left her there on the floor when the fire alarm went off, afraid someone might find him with her limp body and accuse him of debauchery or worse?

  My mind was on overdrive.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured Justin uncorking then pouring the special bottle of Dom Perignon that Marilee had saved for her special occasion. He’d poured a glass for himself, but he’d never drunk it. Marilee had barely touched hers either, because she’d been too busy fending off Amber.

  But Kendall . . . she’d downed her full glass like a fraternity boy attacking a beer bong. What if Marilee’s expensive bottle had something wrong with it?

  Hey, I’d gotten sick off yogurt that was only two weeks past expiration, not thirty years.

  “There you are, Marilee. My God, I’ve been so worried.”

  Speak of the devil.

  Justin swept into the waiting room, an unruly lock of blond fallen onto his brow. He drew his hands from the pockets of his dove-gray jacket, reaching out for Marilee, who shakily rose from the couch.

  “Where have you been?” she railed at him. “I couldn’t find you when the fire started or later in the parking lot. I was afraid something had happened to you, too.”

  “To me? Oh, no, no. I was never in harm’s way.” He stroked her hair, calming her, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Mother sat on the sofa, mere feet away, and I sat just across the coffee table. “You know how I hate parties, so I slipped out back for some air. I didn’t even know there’d been a fire until I heard the sirens and ran around front. By then, the ambulance was rushing off with you in it. A cop told me they’d taken an unconscious woman to Medical City, so I assumed you were hurt. Then I found out it was Kendall.”

  “Oh, Jussie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize . . . didn’t mean to insinuate that you’d deserted me on purpose,” Marilee blubbered. “I’m just so worried about Kendall. Do you think she drank too much? She wouldn’t have taken drugs, would she? The emergency room doctors asked about Ecstasy.”

  “Drugs? No.” He shook his head. “Never.”

  “You’re right. She’s put those days behind her, thanks to you.” She placed her palms against his chest, staring up at him. “They said her heart stopped, or nearly stopped, but they’ve got it beating normally again. After they draw blood and run some tests, they’ll bring her up to the private room I arranged for her. She’ll have to stay overnight.”

  “That’s probably best.”

  “I hate to consider that she might have done something . . . to harm herself. She’s so sensitive, so temperamental. Whatever I said that made her lose control earlier . . . you saw her drop her glass, didn’t you? What if I’m responsible? What if this episode she’s had is my fault? No matter, she’ll blame me, won’t she?” Marilee pressed her face into his chest, and Justin drew her close, tucking her head beneath his chin.

  His gaze slid my way, and, for a moment, I met his eyes before he looked off, as if he hadn’t seen me at all.

  “This isn’t your fault, Mari,” he said, his voice muffled against the puff of her blond hair. “Kendall brings these things on herself. It’s what the Chinese call ‘Ming.’ It’s her fate . . . her destiny . . . to cause chaos in her own life and the lives of others.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, babe, I do.”

  I wondered what the Chinese word was for “excuse me while I puke”?

  Mother made a face and discreetly slipped off the sofa. She came around to where I sat, leaned low and whispered in my ear, “What a bunch of hogwash. That boy must’ve swallowed a trough.”

  Scary that Mother and I were thinking the very same thing. Thank goodness it didn’t happen often, but, when it did, it unnerved me.

  I got up, ambling toward the Mr. Coffee.

  Cissy followed.

  “Young Mr. Gable wasn’t looking for Marilee after the fire”—she insisted, hovering at my shoulder—“and I should know, because I found her easily enough once Fredrik got the car far enough into the parking lot to let me out. Marilee was in the center of it all, as usual, hollering like she’d had a bad bikini wax. Anyone with ears would’ve pinpointed her in a second flat. It was a lot harder trying to find you. No one told me you were still inside the building.” She poked me in the ribs and asked, “Did you see Justin before that nice fireman carried you out?”

  Fleetingly—and I mean, fleetingly—I considered confiding that I’d walked in on Justin and Kendall in Marilee’s office, shagging on the sofa before the party started.

  Then I nixed that idea, afraid that Cissy might blab to Marilee out of some sense of loyalty. And I’d given Kendall my word that I wouldn’t squeal.

  Since it sounded like basically everyone in Kendall’s life had let her down at some point—her father, her mother, her off-and-on-again lover—I didn’t want to add my name to the list. She needed to learn that not everyone was out to betray her.

  “Justin could’ve been inside the building, but I didn’t see him, no. I didn’t see anyone else except Kendall.”

  See being the operative word.

  I could still feel the darkness around me, the sense of disorientation as I’d fumbled my way down the hallway. But I hadn’t been alone. Someone had been there, had bumped into me without apology. If it were Justin, I would’ve needed night goggles to ID him.

  But it could’ve been.

  I pushed my glasses tighter on my nose and looked across the room.

  Marilee clung to the lapels of Justin’s jacket.

  Empty lapels, I realized.

  Where was his rose?

  “What is it?” Mother asked, noting my hesitation.

  I rubbed a hand over the nape of my neck where my short hairs prickled. “I’m not sure, but I think Justin might have gone back to Marilee’s office after Kendall.”

  “Well, did he or didn’t he?”

  “There was a broken boutonnière on the carpet by Kendall’s shoes.”

  I thought again about who’d knocked into me in the hallway, the brush of air against my skin, and I suddenly remembered breathing in the scent of something sweet and soft.

  Almonds.

  �
��What’s wrong, sugar?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t explain to her when I wasn’t sure myself. “It’s nothing, never mind.”

  “What about that broken rosebud? You think it’s Justin’s? He isn’t wearing a boutonnière now.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Mother. Not really,” I said, and I could read her disappointment. “All of Marilee’s male staffers wore them in their lapels. Any one of them could have been in the office at some time during the party.”

  “That boy is up to no good,” she whispered.

  “Well, you can’t make up what didn’t happen.” Still, there was something I was sure of. “Justin wasn’t out back,” I told her, keeping my voice down. “I would’ve seen him when I pushed open the rear exit door. No one was out there. Just rows of parked cars.”

  Cissy sucked in her cheeks. “But it’s possible he was with Kendall.”

  “How?” My mother seemed awfully eager to pin something on Marilee’s junior Romeo.

  “He could’ve slipped her a Mickey,” she hissed in my ear, “in the champagne.”

  “What?”

  “A Mick-ey,” she reiterated, emphasizing each syllable, as if I’d bought deaf and dumb in a two-pack at the Horchow outlet store. She snapped her fingers, rings twinkling beneath the green fluorescent glow. “It’s so easy these days, what with the Internet and all. You can order anything. He could’ve used that date rape drug. What’s it called? PHD?”

  My right eyelid twitched.

  Like the night hadn’t been long enough already.

  “It’s GHB,” I told her. “Not PHD.” Though, come to think of it, I had once gone out with a PhD whose tales of academe nearly rendered me unconscious.

  “You sure it’s not GHP?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. That’s my health insurance company.”

  “GHB. Okay, yes.” She whispered like we were coconspirators. “I’ve seen warnings about it on TV. I even watched an A&E special about that Max Factor heir who went around sprinkling it in women’s drinks so he could”—she frowned—“have his way with them. All that money and not an ounce of charm.” She clicked tongue against teeth. “Such a waste of a trust fund.”

  As if she wouldn’t have been matchmaking up a storm had the guy lived in Big D, at least before his mug shot appeared on America’s Most Wanted.

  “I don’t trust Justin Gable, not as far as I can spit.” Mother was on a roll. “Marilee thinks Kendall’s jealous of her relationship with that boy, but what if Justin’s equally envious of Kendall? She stands to inherit when Mari goes. So perhaps Justin wanted to get the girl out of the way, so he could be first in line if anything happened to Mari?”

  “You think Justin spiked the champagne . . . or whatever . . . so Kendall would be out of the picture for good?” It was hard to say without laughing. And people thought I had a vivid imagination. “Look, Mother, this isn’t an Agatha Christie novel. Regular people don’t do that kind of stuff.”

  Not the people I knew.

  “I am well aware of the difference between reality and fiction, thank you very much, Andrea.”

  “You sure?”

  I was tempted to remind her of a certain “Count Vladimir from Romania” whom she had entertained and introduced around on the party circuit last spring before he was arrested for fraud. Turns out he was a bankrupt day trader from Baton Rouge pulling a con.

  Surprise, surprise.

  “The world is a far different place than it used to be, so much more violent,” Mother said, a reminder of why I avoided watching the nightly news. “It’s enough to make you want to stay home with all the locks bolted and the alarm set.” Lines puckered around her mouth. “Why, last week, Buffy Winspear was robbed, for heaven’s sakes.”

  “What?” I hadn’t seen that one coming. Buffy Winspear was a sixty-year-old perennial fundraising chairwoman who ran with Mother’s crowd, so the fact that she was victimized didn’t exactly put me at ease. “Geez, Mother, was she hurt?”

  “She had the DVD player stolen right out of her Escalade while she was at Pilates.”

  “Her Escalade?”

  “Fresh off the lot and loaded.”

  I struggled to keep my eyes from crossing.

  Slowly, I exhaled. “Buffy’s car was burgled?”

  “They broke a window, but they didn’t take anything else. Luckily, her Liberace CD collection was untouched.”

  Luckily?

  A tiny ache tweaked my temples.

  “Listen to me, Andrea,” she said in a hushed voice. “Men are ruled by testosterone, not common sense or reason.”

  Was she talking about Buffy’s burglar or Justin?

  “They do things out of anger when they’re pushed too far, usually by a woman.”

  I pressed my fingertips against the throbbing above my eyes.

  “Think of that case in California, where that husband bought a boat, killed his pregnant wife, and dumped her into the bay. Fool claimed to be fishing on Christmas Eve.” She flipped her head. “Good Lord, who goes fishing on Christmas Eve? He should have said he was doing some last-minute shopping, because he surely couldn’t use golfing as an excuse. It’s what OJ told the police, so that alibi was taken.”

  “Mother, you can’t copyright an alibi.”

  “Just listen to me, Andrea.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  Good God.

  Calgon, take me away. And make it ASAP.

  Chapter 14

  I squished my eyes closed and opened them again.

  Even took off my glasses and rubbed the lenses with the hem of my T-shirt. Pinched the bridge of my nose before I put them back on. Unfortunately, nothing had changed—Marilee was crying into Justin’s shoulder and Cissy was yapping about the shortcomings of homicidally inclined husbands, though at least the smudged fingerprint was gone from my peripheral view.

  “You would have thought he’d learned from OJ, but he tried to run to Mexico with $10,000 in his pocket, his hair dyed blond, and with that awful beard. If he’d lain low, maybe someone besides his own poor misguided mother would have believed him. Good heavens, Andrea, have you paid attention to a word I’ve said in the last five minutes?”

  My eyes had glazed over, so numbing was her monologue. If I never heard another word about OJ—other than the indisputably innocent breakfast juice—I could die a happy woman.

  Cissy cocked her head and stared at me. “Sweetie, you don’t look well. Perhaps you should sit down.”

  If I didn’t look well, it was because I felt like a zombie. Too much bombardment of external sensation and not enough chance to absorb it.

  “Come along.” She took my arm and led me back to the chair with the blue vinyl cushion. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure sweep past us and charge up to the nurses’ station.

  A trim fellow in khakis and a Polo tee, brown hair curling at the collar.

  He leaned against the counter and rattled off quite plainly to a ponytailed woman in scrubs, “I was told the victim from the Addison fire was transferred to a room on this floor. I think it might be someone I know . . .”

  Even if I hadn’t heard his voice, I would’ve recognized that backside. Like an in-season plum, small but firm.

  “Brian?” I called out, getting to my feet, despite Mother’s attempts to keep me glued to the chair. “Hey, Malone?” I tried again and, this time, he turned around, giving me a full frontal of the concern on his bespectacled face.

  He rushed over with all the eagerness of a puppy whose owner has returned from an extended vacation. “Oh, my God, I was so worried,” he said, grabbing my arms and pulling me close. His chin caught my glasses, knocking them askew.

  Grace was not his forte any more than it was mine.

  “I saw on the news about the fire at the studio,” he went on in a rush. “They mentioned a woman being transported to Medical City by ambulance, and I tried to call your cell. Then I tried your condo. When you didn’t answer either phone, I panicked.”

  �
��I’m okay,” I assured him as he rubbed his hands over my shoulders. “It wasn’t me. It was Marilee’s daughter, Kendall.”

  “I’m so relieved I could kiss you.”

  “So, what’s stopping you?” I quietly asked.

  He caught his hand at the nape of my neck and bent toward me, his mouth on a direct trajectory to mine.

  Mother cleared her throat.

  A foghorn could not have given off a louder warning.

  Abort, abort.

  Abruptly his lips changed course and landed on my forehead. He clumsily patted my arms before stepping back to introduce a couple feet between us. He brushed his palms on his trousers and uttered, “Uh, hello, Mrs. Kendricks. How’re you doing, ma’am? I’m sorry, but I didn’t see you there.”

  I straightened the glasses on my nose and frowned, finding it hard to believe that a man who spent his days learning the ropes as a defense attorney for one of the most powerful firms in Dallas could be so cowed by a woman wearing size-six Chanel.

  It’s not as though she was packing heat. The only concealed weapon she carried was a Charles of the Ritz touch-up stick. Though she did carry a good deal of weight with his bosses, which might well account for his awkwardness around her.

  “I’m sorely offended by your remark, Mr. Malone. Didn’t see me, hmm? And with me dressed to the nines. Perhaps you ought to have your vision checked. You may require a stronger prescription,” Cissy said, sounding miffed.

  I could tell she was toying with him, but I’m not sure it was all that clear to Brian.

  This was her “alpha belle” routine, a test she put each man through with the balls to date me, which doubtless had something to do with my still being single.